Never before
had
Christianity or any other
religion had so many individuals giving full time to the propagation of
their faith. Never had so many hundreds of thousands contributed
voluntarily
of their means to assist the spread of Christianity or any other
religion.
(A History of Christianity, Volume 2)

Jesus Christ
gave a
number of verbal
illustrations (parables) in which he foretold the growth of the Church.
For example:

The kingdom of
heaven is
like a grain of
mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; it is the
smallest
of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and
becomes
a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its
branches.
(Matthew 13:31-32)

Jesus also said:
"And
the gospel must
first be preached in all nations." (Mark 13:10) And "you shall be my
witnesses
in Jerusalem ... and to the end of the earth." (Acts 1:8) The "end of
the
earth" must surely include us in Australia and the Pacific Islands.

TWO THOUSAND YEARS OF
CHRISTIAN GROWTH(Most of the figures
in this chart are estimates)

DATE

NUMBER OF CHRISTIANS

WORLD
POPULATION (Millions)

CHRISTIAN % OF WORLD POPULATION

c.35AD

5,000

260

0.002%

100

50,000

300

0.02

300

1,500,000

250

0.6

400

8,000,000

250

3.2

700

30,000,000

300

10

1000

45,000,000

350

13

1500

70,000,000

450

15.5

1800

160,000,000

900

18

1900

350,000,000

1,650

21

1950

550,000,000

2,450

22.4

1975

940,000,000

4,000

23.5

1990

1,250,000,000

5,200

24

2000

1,500,000,000

6,000

25

Galatians chapter 4 shows that non-Jewish
believers would outnumber Jewish believers. This was originally written
in about 50 A.D. when Christians numbered perhaps 10,000 and Jews
perhaps
4,000,000. It took about 350 years for Christian believers to catch up.

Isaiah (54:17)
predicted:

No weapon that
is
fashioned against you
shall prosper.

This originally
applied to the Jews –
how their identity as a people and nation would survive.

Galatians
chapter 4 – when
discussing the
increase of non-Jewish believers in God – quoted from Isaiah 54
(actually
from verse 1). This suggests that the entire 54th chapter of Isaiah,
including
"no weapon against you shall prosper", has a fulfilment in Christianity
in addition to its original application to Judaism.

The "weapons"
against
Christianity have included
organized large scale martyrdom, inquisitions, Bible burnings,
invasions
of "barbarians" from Asia, avalanches of new cults, Atheistic
Communism,
etc. The last-mentioned – Communism – currently seems to be
disintegrating,
a "weapon" that did not "prosper".

Perhaps the
greatest
"weapon" is the internal
problems, the "Christian" fakes.

Jesus compared
it to a
wheat field sown with
weeds. (Matthew 13:24-30) The Apostle Paul stated: "from among your own
selves will arise men speaking perverse things to draw away the
disciples
after them." (Acts 20:30) My chart of "CHRISTIAN GROWTH" makes no
distinction
between the genuine and the fakes, between the wheat and the weeds.

Eventually the
"weeds"
will be removed (Matthew
13:40-50), and "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to
the
Lord." (Psalm 22:26) Evidently greater growth lies ahead.